Dragon's Crown Review

Date: 8/13/2013

By Ned Jordan

Here at The Gamers' Temple we don't generally cross-post reviews between
systems. If a game is played on the PS3, the review is posted as a PS3 game
review and a copy of it is not just slapped into the Xbox 360 game review list.
We review what we play, play what we review, and don't make assumptions about
cross-platform games on other platforms.

This brings me to the Dragon's Crown review, a review of a game that has been
released on the PS3 and Vita. The game provides essentially 99% the same
experience on both platforms, which I can tell you from personal experience
having played both versions of the game. Rather than try to come up with two
entirely different ways to say the same things, you'll find the bulk of the PS3
and Vita reviews for Dragon's Crown to be the same. Each review will differ
slightly, though, in that I'll try to point out what I feel is good and bad
about the game as it applies to either the PS3 or Vita version. If you have both
systems, this may be useful to you since there's no cross-buy with Dragon's
Crown - the only way that you can play the game on both platforms is to buy it
twice. If not, you can save the time and read the review once for the system
that you do own. And now that that's out of the way, let's look at the game
itself...

In Dragon's Crown you take on the role of an adventurer - fighter, dwarf, elf,
Amazon, sorceress, or wizard - newly arrived in the land of Hydeland. A desire
for treasure, adventure, and glory leads you to the local Adventurers' Guild. If
you can manage to successfully complete the quest given to you as a trial to
prove your worth, you'll be admitted to the guild, and then the real adventuring
will begin.

There's not a lot of depth to the story and although when story points are
delivered they're all beautifully narrated, they're really there to serve as a
bit of glue to stick the quests together and give you just a bit of motivation
for completing these quests beyond the desire to "kill things and grab loot."
This is not really a knock against the game, though, because although it has the
look and some of the trappings of an RPG, in reality it's a side-scrolling
action game that evokes memories of games such as Golden Axe or a number of
classic NeoGeo titles. However, simply calling Dragon's Crown a modern day
Golden Axe would be doing it a big disservice.

First of all, there's a real difference between the characters available for
play. While they may each basically fall into either a melee or ranged attack
class, unique special abilities and class-specific skill trees lend each one to
a different style of play. The fighter is suited to slugging it out against
enemies while the sorceress needs to keep enough of a distance to avoid taking
too much damage while casting her powerful spells. In single player mode this
means that if you select the sorceress you'll be making things more challenging
for yourself, but in multiplayer mode it means that you have a particular role
to play. The fighter's ability to block attacks coupled with his strong melee
attacks make him a frontline fighter that can keep enemies at bay leaving the
fragile sorceress free to unleash her devastating magical attacks.

Next, there's the combat system, which goes well beyond the light attack/heavy
attack control schemes of classic side-scrollers. The combos, juggles, defensive
moves, and other aspects of the surprisingly deep combat system make the game
feel as much like a sophisticated fighting game as a side-scrolling brawler.

And then there's the RPG like level progression and character skill trees. New
spells, buffs, and abilities help to keep the game interesting for much longer
than a typical brawler and allow you to customize your character to your
preferred play style.

The game's RPG elements pretty much end there, though. There's a single city
that serves as the game's hub, but even calling it a city is a stretch. It's
more of a collection of locations such as the game's store and the guild where
you pick up and turn in your quests. These quests will send you through the
game's nine dungeon levels in turn, each of which is explored by perpetually
moving to the right. Well, not entirely, the game does give you the option to
stray from the main path to explore side rooms and paths if you're interested in
picking up some extra loot and experience. These side routes are randomized, so
if you play through again with a new character or at a higher difficulty level
you'll get a little variety. There's also some variety to the main dungeon
levels on a second run as well, as you'll be able to unlock a second main path
for each dungeon as you play though the game.

Even when you're playing the game alone, you won't have to go into the dungeons
alone. You're always accompanied by your rogue companion, and while he will take
cover in a fight and wait it out he does help you out in other ways. He'll sweep
the area after a battle and help you scoop up the loot and toss it in his
omnipresent Santa sack. He'll also unlock treasure chests and doors for you.
It's easy to order him to do so; just tap on the chest or door and he'll do the
rest. And keep an eye out for small twinkles of light because tapping on them
will reveal hidden treasures.

In addition to the rogue, you'll be able to recruit other AI-controlled
characters to join your party. If you come across the bones of an adventurer in
a dungeon, you can resurrect that adventurer back in town. All of the
adventurers that you've resurrected can be added to your open party slots at the
town's tavern. While you won't have any control over these characters or be able
to set their programmed tactics, since the game is primarily a beat 'em up it is
always a help to have additional characters wailing away on enemy health bars
with you. The arcade style 'continues' available to your character should you
die are also available to your companions, but the ease of their resurrection
depends on which system that you're playing on. On the Vita, it just takes a
quick tap of the character's status icon at the top of the screen, which doesn't
take you out of the battle for any appreciable amount of time.

As for graphics, the game is gorgeous. Everything, from the backgrounds, to the
characters, to the monsters, is hand-drawn and smoothly animated. Playing the
game is like watching a good quality animated movie, and the game's unique art
style gives it a look that's all its own. The game looks great on both the Vita
and the PS3, although the Vita can suffer a few hiccups when the screen is full
of enemies - which I didn't notice on the PS3. The PS3 version also has the
advantage of being played on a much larger screen, making it easier to
appreciate the detail that went into the game's artwork.

Overall, Dragon's Crown is a very enjoyable game. If you make the mistake of
thinking that it's an RPG you may be disappointed, but if you've ever enjoyed
arcade side-scrolling brawlers it's very easy to recommend. Dragon's Crown takes
the 1990s arcade standard genre and evolves it for the 21st Century. I'm
rating the Vita version slightly higher, because the touch controls work better
with the interface than they do with the PS3 version of the game.